September 2, 2014

3:06 pm

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Last Friday, Y Combinator president Sam Altman said that the seed accelerator will be greatly increasing efforts to recruit more black entrepreneurs through their program. Y Combinator recently opened up the application process for its 2015 Winter class of startups, and Altman said that they’re hoping to increase the number of black applicants by adding black colleges to its recruiting schedule this fall, as well as working with organizations that have close connections with the black community.

“If we were to limit ourselves to founders of one group, we would miss out on a lot of great companies,” said Altman in the report by USA Today. “We are making it known that we want to do more on this.”

Only 1 percent of all Y Combinator applicants are black, with three black founders included in YC’s most recent class of startups. Considering YC’s position as the most highly regarded accelerator, the numbers don’t look so great, and they’re revealing of the prevalent issues and criticisms that remain regarding the entire startup ecosystem: that this is a reality designed primarily for the young, white man. And the reason for this, said Altman, is because those in tech have this kind of “blind spot” where it fails to recognize certain founders or companies because of innate bias in the system:

“Whether real or perceived, and I personally think it’s real, there is a belief among these founders that they get taken less seriously and that makes it harder to get funding, press, customers, you name it,” said Altman. “If you feel like the world wants a 22-year-old white man and you are not that, of course it negatively affects you.”

It’s a bold and certainly laudable effort by YC, which – as USA Today points out – could impact reverberations throughout Silicon Valley, due to its massive influence and network. The hope, for now, is whether such efforts can have an actual effect on the number of black entrepreneurs going through its program.

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Ronald Barba is the managing editor of Tech.Co. His primary story interests include industry trends, consumer-facing apps/products, the startup lifestyle, business ethics, diversity in tech, and what-is-this-bullsh*t things.
Aside from writing about startups and entrepreneurship, Ronald is interested in 'Doctor Who', Murakami, 'The Mindy Project', and fried chicken. He is currently based in New York because he mistakenly studied philosophy in college and is now a "writer". He also likes to cook things; you can check out all the noms on his Instagram.
Email Ronald ([email protected]) or tweet @RonaldPBarba. You can also subscribe to him on Facebook or find him on Google.